The invention relates generally to the field of land use analysis, and in particular to a system and method of determining view obstruction and/or clarity.
The use of interactive and dynamic 3D computer graphics is becoming prevalent in the computing world. Typically, 3D visualization applications provide photo-realistic results using techniques such as ray tracing, radiosity, global illumination and other shading, shadowing and light reflection techniques. Such 3D visualization applications provide a 3D generated model, without relationship to the existing environment.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/538,103 to Elsberg et al, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Virtual Reality Presentation of Civil Engineering, Land Planning and Infrastructure”, published as US 2007/0078636 A1, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, is addressed to a computer implemented method of visualizing an infrastructure. Such a method allows for evaluating large scale designs in a virtual reality environment.
In the real world, any new development, or improvement, impacts surrounding buildings. For example, a new building for which a height variance is requested, will obstruct the existing view from existing buildings. The obstruction may have negative impacts, or positive impacts, depending on the existing view being obstructed, however a means for evaluating such an impact would be a useful tool in evaluating zoning change, or variance, requests. Similarly, land use requests for infrastructure impacts the view of pre-existing structures. Unfortunately, there is no way to automatically and consistently numerically quantify the impact of planned construction on the view of existing construction.
Google Earth, available from Google Inc. of Mountain View, Calif.; GIS Software products from ESRI of Redlands, Calif.; Autodesk DWF and U-VIS 360 available from Autodesk Inc., of San Rafael, Calif.; and Adobe 3D PDF, available from Adobe Systems, Inc., of San Jose, Calif., are all examples of currently available 3D GIS interactive viewers. The above mentioned limitation is not resolved by any of the above mentioned available viewers.
Additionally, when planning a new community, the ability to predict view factors of important valued scenery, would assist the developer in maximizing the value of the property. For example, when developing a lakefront property with a plurality of dwellings and infrastructure, a key factor in the value of each dwelling is the valued scenery, e.g. the lakefront view. A need therefore exists to automatically determine the amount of lakefront view available for each planned dwelling.